Meet the Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Saltonstall Foundation is comprised of dedicated individuals committed to maintaining and advancing the mission of the Foundation. Each one brings a passion for the arts, and many are artists and writers from the immediate Ithaca area.
Barry Perlus, President, Photographer, Cornell University Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
Barry Perlus has been on the Board of Directors of the Saltonstall foundation since 2008. Although the demands on his time are many, he manages to give the Foundation the benefit of his careful thought and attention to the issues at hand. Of his professional life, Barry says, "My artistic practice employs photography and digital imaging, with a keen interest in observation and interpretation. My work often engages architectural and landscape subjects, using elements of scale, perspective, light, color, and abstraction to create new interpretations."
William Benson, co-Secretary and Past President, Fine Artist, Portraitist
Bill Benson is a nationally known portraitist whose work has been shown around the country and across Europe. Knowing what it is like to make a living as an artist in 21st century America, Bill brings an innate understanding of what the Foundation is striving to accomplish. His passion for the arts extends across disciplines. He is currently hard at work restoring a wooden sailboat which he hopes to have seaworthy by next Spring.
Robert M. Colley, co-Secretary
Robert Colley is a recently retired associate dean at University College, Syracuse University, and editor ofStone Canoe, a prize-winning journal designed to showcase distinctive art and literature from the entire Upstate New York Region, including many Saltonstall grant winners. He also publishes Vitruvius, a virtual arts journal that is distributed in Second Life, and has recently begun his own publishing company, Standing Stone Books. He is a published author, writing on literature, professional ethics and moral education, a published photographer, a tennis player and novice sailor.
Rachel Dickinson, Writer
Michael Koch, Writer, Senior Lecturer at Cornell University
Michael Koch is a fiction writer and serves as a senior lecturer in the Department of English at Cornell University. His teaching interests include creative writing (specifically the short story), the study of contemporary American short fiction, and the study of contemporary fiction of the American South. Since 1989 he has been editor of Epoch, Cornell's internationally distributed literary magazine.
Michael Moyer, Assistant Dean of Alumni Affairs and Development for the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
Mike has served in his current role at Cornell University for the past five years. He is responsible for overseeing all alumni affairs and fundraising work for the college.
Prior to coming to Cornell University Mike was at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland for six years in development and alumni relations. Before entering the higher education field he worked as a marketing consultant in Washington, D.C. Mike received a Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelors of Science in Business Management from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas in 2000.
Mike has been involved with the performing arts from a young age and is thrilled to serve as a new member on the Constance Saltonstall Foundation Board.
Terry Plater, painter
Terry is a painter who works in oils and pastels. She focuses on the figure, landscape and portraiture. Her education as an artist includes painting workshops at the Art Students’ League (NYC), the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown MA), and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Philadelphia PA).
Terry earned a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from the University of Pennsylvania. She has a master's in architecture degree from Columbia University and a B.A. in psychology with a minor in fine art from Villanova University. She has more than 30 years of higher education experience: as faculty in colleges of art, architecture, and planning; and in senior administration as an associate dean for academic affairs in Cornell University's Graduate School.
Locally, Terry is a participating artist on the Greater Ithaca Art Trail. Her work has been exhibited at the Community Arts Partnership's ArtSpace (2013), the Tompkins County Public Library (2012), the Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center's "Made in NY" annual exhibit (2012), at the State of the Art Gallery new member’s exhibition (January 2012), and at the Community School of Music and Arts (2011).
Alice Saltonstall, Musician, Artist
Alice, Connie's younger sister, is a local jazz/improvisational singer who earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Syracuse University. She has collaborated with various local musicians, most recently with Jayne Demakos who produced the CD "Beauty Crowds Me" for Hospice. Alice is the mother of four children. She loves the Saltonstall Colony and would like her sister's legacy to grow and continue to support the artists and writers of New York State.